The letter states "nickel"
but what really grabbed me was the date it was received in the warehouse and the date it was shipped---------15 years inbetween 
Must have been found in a dark corner or maybe the 1873 put a real hurtin' on 1866 sales. Lots of imagination car run wild here. Ahhhh---It was 10 years since the introduction of the 1873 and sales for the 1866 were poor, especially for nickel plated rifles so......some manager tells his workers to "put it in the back, behind the spinning wheels"...where it sat for 15 years until a drunken worker in 1898 looking for a place to sleep it off, buries himself behind the spinning wheels. He starts gagging from the dust, then pukes. He then takes a leak and while looking down, shaking his unit, he see's a glimmer of shine. Thinking, "hey, I need some bucks to buy more liquor and no one will notice this gone." He gets caught and is taken out back where he is shot. Lawyers for the family demand restitution from Winchester, so Winchester gives them the rifle and the family sells it to the State of Iowa where they raffle it off at the state fair. --------------SixgunThats one thing about the East, rare stuff is continuing to be found and the owners don't know what they have.
This would easily buy a nice new car, jeep or pick-up truck.
